I'm putting together a PC for someone I know (this, btw, is the same PC that I asked about on my DVI thread earlier today).
It's assembled, but it won't run XP. The HD is a PATA Seagate 500GB. It completes the first DOS-like portion of XP setup, but when it restarts, it tells me "Error loading operating system."

Now the funny thing is that when I slip in my Vista DVD, everything works just fine, so the HD can't be bad. But the guy I'm building this for wants XP instead of Vista. I'm at a loss.
Any ideas?

Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core.
Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2
X800XT AIW OC 580/600
2GB of RAM
250GB HD
SB Audigy 2
QDI Advance 12 mobo
Smugly running Vista

You could try obtaining a new license key and see if that helps.

(By the way, how well is that Pentium III running Vista? =D.)

I like chicken.

The "error loading OS" comes up before Windows even shows its splash screen. I really doubt that a new license key would help me.

My beloved P3 is running Vista just great, thanks! What many people don't know about the P3 (and especially the Tualatin-based P3-S) is that they do a lot more work per clock cycle than P4s. At 1.63GHz, this thing is running as fast as a P4 at 2.5GHz in everything except video encoding.

Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core.
Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2
X800XT AIW OC 580/600
2GB of RAM
250GB HD
SB Audigy 2
QDI Advance 12 mobo
Smugly running Vista

Have you tried different "XP media"? I have noticed with my XP installs that although during the initial part of the install (just after formatting the drive/partition) it says copying files to hard drive, that after the first reboot it continues to access the CD.

Also, it may be related to the 48-bit LBA problem. What is the size of the partition you are trying to load it to? If you are trying to do a partition larger than 120GB you need to be installing from an XP cd that includes at least Service Pack one slipstreamed into it.

Have you tried installing the raid drivers for your SATA HD???

First thought would be a corrupted CD, but I'm guessing it's got through the 'copying files' section ok so that shouldn't be a problem. You could try installing it on a smaller partition rather than the full 500Gb - stranger things have happened. May be worth running a manufacturer's diagnostic on the harddrive itself anyway just to be sure.

"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

johnr, installing XP on a 20GB partition worked great! Thanks for your help!

Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core.
Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2
X800XT AIW OC 580/600
2GB of RAM
250GB HD
SB Audigy 2
QDI Advance 12 mobo
Smugly running Vista

Hmmm, glad it worked - I'd personally have gone for something slightly bigger than 20Gb ;-)

"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

I just tried the very small amount of 20gb so that I'd know for sure if it would work or not. Today I'll probably set it up to have a 120GB C: partition and 380GB D: partition. Thanks again!

Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core.
Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2
X800XT AIW OC 580/600
2GB of RAM
250GB HD
SB Audigy 2
QDI Advance 12 mobo
Smugly running Vista

http://www.48bitlba.com/

Along with what all these guys have said, you can overcome the 137gb limitation of XP RTM by slipstreaming SP1 or SP2 into the installation media. I've done installs on several 320gb drives this way.

Gigabyte GA-K8NS
Athlon64 3000+ Venice E6 250x10
Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu LED
2GB G.Skill PC3200
ATi X800XL 256MB AGP
120GB WD IDE/250GB WD SATA
SB Audigy
Lite-On SHW160P6S/SOHC5236V